First John 3:7-10 Children of God and the Children of the Devil

Okay, 1 John chapter three, seven through 10, the verses are children of God and children of the devil. We'll look at that contrast later. Let me get my pointer working here. I'll start in verse seven and read through verse 10. Little children, make sure no one deceives you.

The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who practices sin is out of the devil, or is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin because his seed abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. By this, the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious.

Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. So that's our task for this morning. is to, we'll begin with verse seven. Little children, make sure no one sees you. The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous.

This first phrase, we've seen this word before, technia, little children, from the verbal form is titko, titko, to give birth to is the verb phrase. And I just copied this from weest, means little born ones. Scotch, if you, anyone Scottish, barrens is the Scottish word for children. like the musical Brigadoon. I think there's a reference to Bairns and the musical Brigadoon.

And he's used that many times before that word, technia. Make sure no one is madeis. You see the Greek word there, M-E-D-E-I-S, or the transliterated Greek word, means no one, nobody. I added in know how. No one or nobody know how is to deceive you or to lead you astray. And that's planao, is to lead astray.

One of the ministries of, we're gonna, I'm gonna do a short little study here on the ministries of what I call the ministries of Satan to deceive. Yeah, Satan has some unholy ministries. Yeah. Some of his ministries are craftiness and deception. We see from Genesis 3.1 and Genesis 3.2, now Satan was more crafty than any beast in the field. And there's what he said to Eve. He said, indeed, has God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden? So he's using craftiness and deception there from the very beginning. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11 three, but I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

And I think that that's interesting because that's what's happened. That's exactly what's happening here in 1 John with these believers that John is writing to the same issue. And I noticed that Paul uses that word purity that we had a couple weeks ago in verse What was that? Verse three of chapter three. Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness. And not that one, this one. And everyone who has this hope fixed on him, in verse three, purifies himself just as he is pure.

Another mystery of Satan is deception, or a counterfeit, I'm sorry, counterfeit. He counterfeits the things of God, false prophets, false teachings, counterfeit systems of doctrine. He has those going on, he has counterfeit churches. There is an unholy trinity that includes him as a false deity, and his false Christ is the man of sin, the Antichrist, the final Antichrist. and a false Holy Spirit, which is the second beast, who sort of has the ministry, a lot like the Holy Spirit has, except this one ministers between Satan and the Antichrist, that second beast of Revelation.

So, the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous. Let's look at that. Practices is poieo, it's to do, to carry out, to execute, and it's a present tense active voice verb. Righteousness is diakosune, it's being faultless, guiltless, and it's a positive right standing. I just looked up vine and he says it means to be right-wise, or what we know to be a plus R, and it's God's very essence, isn't it? So the second phrase of, or part B of verse seven, that just as he is righteous, that's just a statement of his essence right there, just as he is righteous. So this is in our everyday hour by hour manner of walk, our condition. that we are to practice righteousness.

John uses this word poeo, which is practices. And I know that Bob doesn't like practices that word so much. Peter, and I'm making an observation here, Peter would use the word conversation or your behavior, which he means your comportment or your manner of life. Paul often uses walk, peripateo. And I noticed that John started out the epistle using the word walk, too. And then I think he makes a switch here to practice which has caused a lot of doctrinal kind of badminton between people who study John. We'll look at that later though.

So this, just as he is righteous, this phrase just as is from that word, it's a standard or a template and the mold is Christ's righteousness. Roy, what's that word for a standard in Greek? Kata, that's what I'm, yeah. Yeah, norm or standard. Yeah, so that's, and that word just as is derived from kata, the norm or the standard. So the standard is Christ. He's the standard by which we measure our daily walk of righteousness. How do we carry out a righteous manner of life?

Well, he answers back in 1 John 2.28, and I think I mean to say there 2.29, I've rewritten 2.28, but he says, John says, let that which you have heard from the beginning abide in you. And what he means by that which you have heard is the word that John and the apostles spoke concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. Also by abiding in him, and that's our word meno, and now little children in verse, I think that's supposed to be 29, abide in him.

Let me just... I might have some of the verse references wrong in there. I'll have to look that up and just make sure before I publish this, but it's in there. Yeah. Well, 29 says, born of him, basically. So- Yeah, born of him. And I'm looking for the verse that says, and now little children abide in him. 28, 28. 28, you're right. 28, okay. Now little children abide in him. Okay, great.

And then where does it say the word, where did I get that which you have heard from the beginning abide in you? I might've- Not in these verses. Okay, I might've gotten that. I'll take a look at that. Anyway, it's in there. That's chapter one, first verse. chapter one verse first you heard from the beginning also 24 oh yeah and i'm thinking of another verse i'll find it there um i'll make a note there okay another verse um that's related to this is from paul let the word of christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Colossians 3.16 is how we can carry out a righteous life by abiding in Him.

And that Colossians 3.16 is, you know, what you're doing there is, you're filled with the Holy Spirit. That's a verse very similar to Ephesians chapter five about be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Okay, let's move on to verse eight. The one who practices sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. And we'll take a look at the first part of verse eight, part A. You know, when I was doing the lesson, I completely didn't copy over part B. And so I had ended the verse there, and then I've discovered there's a second part of verse eight. So almost missed that, but not quite. And that part is important too. So here's our word again, poeo, to do, to carry out, to execute in the present tense, active voice.

The one who carries out sin in the present moment, or present moment sin is out of the devil as a source, because it has the Greek word ek in there. So you practice sin, it's out of the devil. Sin comes out from the devil, and that's contrasted to in this verse, the righteousness is out from God as a source from verse seven. John gives the genesis of sin, which is the devil's creation.

Again, Genesis 3.1, he says to Eve, has God really said? I think that's the genesis of that, or at least the invitation to sin by man there. So, The second part of this bullet point is I'm asking, is the creation of the sin nature, did that get placed in there, in the garden, the sin nature?

And I think it did, but I can't, I'm sort of guessing and I just don't know how it was done. I've been thinking about that a lot. you know, did the sin nature, did the devil put the sin nature in Adam, or how did that come about? Because God said they didn't do it, right? Yeah, it seems a little bit, I don't know.

Yeah. Satan can't create anything. Yeah, Satan only copies, right? Right. Well, yeah, and in a way the sin nature could be a copy of the new nature or his counterfeit of the new nature. I don't know. I just had those sort of questions bobbling around in my empty head over the course of the afternoon. So from the beginning, we've seen this phrase before. And John uses that quite a few times. But this one is not the same beginning as the first part of 1 John, whereas he means the beginning of your faith in Christ. This one is Satan's beginning. And where does that begin? I copied this over from major Bible themes. I think Satan's beginning is up in heaven and from Isaiah 14, 12 through 14, and he has a one, two, three, four, five, a series of five I wills. I will ascend into heaven. I will raise my throne above the stars. I will sit on the mount of the assembly. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like the Most High, and that's the beginning of his career.

And then he came down to earth and he passed that on to, he started with Eve to start mankind's career in sin. So that's Satan's beginning, and he has sinned from the beginning. There's his sins right there, those series of I wills, So the second part, verse 8b, the Son of God has appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. Some purposes of Christ's coming is what we're gonna look at briefly.

This word appeared is fanarao again. We looked at that a couple weeks ago. I think even Bob had it last week. It's to make manifest or make visible. And he was made manifest and visible at his incarnation for the purpose. And you can see that's a really you know, easy purpose phrase because it has the word purpose in it. You don't have to guess about the purpose as to destroy the devil. Destroy is lua, loosening the bonds of the works of the devil or dissolving the bonds of the devil. Yeah. Yeah, Mike, could you, Michael, you mute your sound. Thanks. Okay.

So the purpose, another purpose of Christ's coming is to give eternal life, the gift of eternal life to whosoever believes in him from John 3, 16. Another purpose of, The Son of God or Christ appearing is from Daniel 9, 24. 70 weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city. These are also things that Christ accomplished to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy place.

Another purpose clause I was thinking about this week, 2 Corinthians 5.21, he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And there we have a very good correlation with the previous verse seven. He is our righteousness if we abide in him there.

And Hebrews 2.24, therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death, there's the purpose clause, he might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil. So a couple other purposes of Christ's coming besides the one stated in 8b, to destroy the works of the devil or to loosen those bonds of the devil. The word, the Greek word, lua, lua. 3.9, and this is our, this is our sticky verse for this morning.

No one who is born of God practices sin because his seed abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. born of God, born as Gana'o, born of begotten, and it's in the passive, you know, you're born, you had nothing to do with that, both your physical birth and your spiritual birth. Think of that when you were born again, you didn't know it was happening, really. You were unaware of what God did, the work that God did, by baptism, Christ's death, burial, resurrection, and all those things, and the newness of life, being reborn. You know, it's not something that happened to you, you experience it, but you just didn't know it happened until you grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Born is, again, ek, out of God, born out of God. Our divine source of life is out of God.

Again, then we have the word poeo, to do, to carry out, in the present tense. And he's used this word now, practice, several times. Anyone have another ver, another word besides practice? The Homeland Christian Standard Bible says, everyone who has been born of God does not sin. It's not a habitual type of thing that practices implies. It's just a one-time action. It's not a continuous action. So they, yeah, and they make a distinction here, and that's our stickiness of this verse.

Weist quotes someone named Smith, I don't know his first name, who defines poeo as continue, like you said, Jim, continually doing sin as a business or a vocation, doing it habitually. is what Wiest says in his commentary. But as I mentioned, I heard over the commentary last week or the week before, Bob and Roy, at least Bob, especially, and you, Jim, too, don't like that habitual thinning qualification. I don't think it's justified. Yeah, and then Bob was saying, well, what is that, five, six times, 12, 16 times?

Do you sin over a year, 10 years? You know, what makes a habit? And it's a good question. It's also a question that Dennis Roekser has in his book. So, Calvin-based interpreters, Reformed theologians, depend on that habitual nature of this word poeo to describe the present tense of this verb. And that's where they get this thing of your old habits. So if you're sinning, it's your old habits left over, from your old nature, which is destroyed, is gone. You shouldn't have an old nature. You only have a new nature.

So they, it causes the Reformed theology proponents to say, well, were you really saved in the first place? Or are you one of the elect? Because if you're habitually sinning, you've got a problem. So that's why there's this split between commentators who are looking at this work. Is it Andrew? Yeah.

I think the reason I reject practice so heartily is because of my Calvinistic background. You know, I've rejected Calvinism and I just don't like the word practice at all. I prefer the older Bible versions do instead of practice. You know, it wasn't until Darby translated his New Testament in 1899, the practices started popping up everywhere.

And thereafter, you know, it's just, And I don't think, you know, everyone sins. And we do things continually, you know? And so I just don't think that's a basis for judging a person, you know, is whether he sinned or not. We all continue to sin. We all sin habitually, but that doesn't have any basis on whether or not we were saved.

Right, yeah, and it's the calvinists or the reformed people tie this sinning to salvation. Oh, yeah, they link those together. You really do. Where is it in the the this epistle first john? Salvation is never a question, right? It's You're stated. You're a you're a child of god. You are now A child of god and he says that many times in this epistle so that's uh Yeah, that standard is set.

So, let's look at this, his, because his seed, one who is born of God, no one who is born of God practices sin because his seed abides in him. That word seed is a sermon, as you can see. And I thought that was just to mean like Abraham's seed or, you know, I kind of related it to that usage or as a seed of a vegetation kind of, especially with Abraham. But it has this other meaning and it's a vital force. It's whatever possesses vital force or life-giving power, the Holy Spirit, the divine energy operating within the soul, by which we are regenerated, or made to be, I think that's the children of God there in Greek. So, and Vine's commentary has the same thing, that this seed is not like you think of Abraham's seed, but it's this vital life-giving power by the Holy Spirit.

And the word abides, there's our word meno. So the supernatural implanted power of the Holy Spirit abides in us and gives us the supernatural power to keep from sin in the present moment. And like you, Jim, I like moment by moment for the present tense, the here and now usage of the word. poeo, which is practice, instead of habitual or continuous. So we're making a determination in this class to do that. Not that that habitual interpretation is wrong, it's just another way to look at it.

So you see in 1 Corinthians 15.45, A parallel verse, the first man Adam became a living soul.

So what chart are you on? I'm a little bit lost. Oh, am I on, do you have three, nine? Okay, I don't see, what bullet point are you on? Three? Oh, three? Okay, all right, okay, good, thank you. Are you there? Okay. I didn't do those, you know, make this bullet points appear. I understand.

So, yeah, so the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. And there's what this word seed is kind of, the force of the word seed is referring to, the sperma. I like the vital force definitions. Yeah, it's kind of, it sounds to me new agey, but... Well, no, vital force speaks to me of the force that comes from God.

Right, right, exactly right. Supernatural force. Yeah, yeah. It's really good. Yeah, it's a cool thing. And like Bob stressed last week, I heard, he said, it's a life, right? It's not how much you're sinning or how often you're sinning, it's life. So that's the path I took this morning. So I think we're all in agreement here. You can sin habitually, and I'm down at bullet point 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 now. We can sin habitually or continually out of the Adamic nature, can't we? The sin nature. Yet we are always saved, that's never a question.

If Paul were describing this, he says it this way, you are carnal, or as he says in 1 Corinthians 3.3, you are still fleshly. And so if those Corinthian believers, they were sinning constantly and habitually, I'm sure, when Paul got to them, and he told them to stop. Therefore, I ask, what source are we abiding in, the divine source or the old source in nature?

So John's point, John's answer to this would be, now little children abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from him in shame at his coming. or Colossians 3.4, when Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you shall also be revealed with Him in glory. So again, this is kind of a repeat, but who's doing the sinning? in who's doing this practice of sin. It's no one born of God, but Paul says in Romans 7, 17, so now no longer am I the one doing it, but the sin which dwells in me is doing it. So you would say that, well, you said we all sin, right?

Yeah. That's why The understanding of the cross is so imperative for the Christian, the understanding, the identification, because without that knowledge, a person doesn't know how to go through suffering. Right, right. Yeah, you would never know the depth of your sin for the cross, right? and what God had to do to take care of this problem of sin.

How about what Jesus says in John, the gospel of John 8, 34, truly, truly, I say unto you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. So here he says, if you're committing sin, you're a slave of sin. And that has a, I mean, That seems continual to me and habitual. So who's not doing the sinning then, is the other quarterly question.

1 Peter 1.23, and this is from Macaulay. For you have been born again, not of seed, which is perishable, but imperishable.

That is through the living and enduring word of God. and 2 Peter 1.4, for by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. So the new nature cannot sin.

This little point here we won't go into, but I have this addendum at the end of the presentation about this habitual interpretation of quote AO that you can look at. And I just put it at the end. And I just want to make it of it. But this is from Constable.

He says, many English translations interpret the Greek tense as saying no Christian habitually sins. However, the Greek tense does not always indicate habitual action. Frequently, it describes, as you said, Jim, absolute action. Since earlier, John wrote that the Christian does sin habitually, if you look at 1 John 1, 6 through 10, or 2, 1. The idea, Constable says, that the Christian does not sin habitually seems inconsistent. So there's the little controversy there.

Okay, on to John 3.10.

By this, the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. And this is our last verse for the morning. Here again is that word, phanera'o, but the adjective form, phanaros, and that's the word for obvious, that the children of the devil and the children of God are, the difference there is obvious or phanaros, to make manifest or plainly known. One who does not do righteousness in their moment-by-moment walk is acting not out of God, or out from God, that word ek, that Greek word ek. The life-giving, energizing, abiding spirit of God, whose very character and essence is infinite righteousness.

I add here the tree determines what type and quality of the fruit. Is it out of the true vine, Christ, or God's tree of life? Or is it from the other tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which has as its vine dresser, Satan, which birthed the sin nature in us in the garden. however that came about. But when we sinned, we inherited this sin nature from Adam.

A sub-theme of this of this book of John, this epistle of John, is that he's also addressing the problem of these outside agitators and false teachers, and he mentions antichrist, who are trying to deceive these believers John is writing to. And you see the verse references there. And they had these Gnostic principles of sin and that you can become sinless or you can sin all you want because the material part of man is inconsequential and things like that. So, I think John is also, under the surface, addressing those men and those errors.

And it's kind of like what James does in the book of James. Your works or your practice is obvious to other people, other men. So, are you practicing sin? And so that people will look at your life and say, boy, are you really saved? So the part of this, that jumps again, is what's on display before other men.

And I think that these believers John was writing to are to examine the lives of these agitators, these antichrists, and they are to make a judgment as to whether they are of God or whether they aren't. And we'll see that in chapter four, verses one through three, when he, John says, you know, test the spirits, see whether they are of God or not.

So that's my final thought of verse 10 there. Okay, last thoughts. I changed the name because Roger threatened to do me. So the ultimate purpose of, I'm going back to John chapter three, verse eight E, the son of God appeared for this purpose to destroy the works of the devil. And there's one more purpose that, really important. And so it's a long passage, but this jumped out at me. In in Colossians 2, eight through 15. I'll change that, I said second Colossians, but there's only one. I'll change that, second Colossians. Anyway, he says, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception. And this is like what John is working on with these believers, these false teachers, Antichrist.

According to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ, for in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And in him, you have been made complete, and he is the head over all rule and authority. And in him, you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, and the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with him through faith in the working of God and raised him, who raised him from the dead. when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him.

And so look at all those, just in a nutshell, the identification truths are all right there in this grand statement. And also I have before that in the first part of this passage, it, I say, compare it to John 4, 1-4 and 1 John 1, 1-3, similar themes here from Paul. Okay, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt, consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. And here's the purpose. When he had disarmed the rulers and authorities, he made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through him. So that's just a wonderful, I hadn't ever taken in that whole passage like I did this week. in its entirety, that's just a wonderful purpose statement of identification truths and the work of Christ that he did with disarming the devil there.

And then of course, I have this addendum here if you wanna look at it later about that habitual problem that the commentators have. So we'll end there, any thoughts? No, good job, Andrew, you had a tough, that's a tough message. Yeah, there's so much there, it was hard to pick a line and ski it there, because it's just a rich, rich thing.

Dennis Rocher's book, How to Interpret 1 John, really explains 3.9 very, very well. Yeah, yeah. And I went with that a lot. Everyone should get that. That was a big help. And Roy, did you have something? I'd just like to share that the two things that really stand out in this passage to me is, number one, we can be deceived. Yeah. And John is warning us not to be deceived. And the second thing that really hit me here was there's a huge parallel here to Matthew's description of the work of God in sowing seed in the parable that the Lord taught there. Oh, yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. The one who sows the good seed is the son of man, that's Matthew 13, 37.

And the slaves asked the master, do you want us to separate now? And he said, no, that'll happen later. Because the devil is the one who is sowing the bad seed. And let them grow together. And in the last days, they will be separated. That's quite a parable that sort of explains this word sperma that we encountered here. Number one, we can be deceived. Number two, God's the one who will separate us in the ultimate. I wonder if when he says seed in the Matthew passage, is it that sperma or is it the spora? That's the other. There's a couple, it'd be interesting to know.

Yeah, the one who sows the good seed and the one who sows the bad seed. And don't be deceived, John says, God is the one who sows good seed. And that is the good seed that we have. Yeah, yeah. And then he's about to, he's about to, it feels like he's getting close to doing this harvest, isn't it? Yeah, we get so discouraged in planting that bad seed that we learn to abide in him and plant that good seed. Right. Yeah. Andrew, we better close. Yeah, I'll close it up here. Thanks. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for this passage, and we thank you for the richness of your word, and let it richly dwell in us this week. In Jesus' name, Amen.